U.S. political analyst who leaked the classified Pentagon papers to the press in 1971, and figured in the Watergate scandal during Nixon's presidency. A Ph.D. graduate of Harvard College (1962), he was originally a strong supporter of the Vietnam War, but became a committed opponent of U.S. policy. When the government attempted to prosecute Ellsberg, he was indicted for giving the papers to the press. The charges were dismissed in 1973 after it was discovered that President Nixon had authorized White House aides to burglarize Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office in an attempt to discredit him. In 2002, he published Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.